


what am i supposed to do? (if there's no you?)

by glimbows



Series: glimbow week 2020 [2]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst and Romance, F/M, Glimbow Week 2020, glimmer with Wings propaganda, in which we are forced to confront the fact that glimmer is near immortal and bow is very much Not, rated t for talk about death / illness and such, writing this was cathartic but also made me very sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26287495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glimbows/pseuds/glimbows
Summary: When her fingers tremble in his grasp, she can’t help but think about how backwards it feels. She should be stroking his hand with her thumb, not the other way around. But she knows it brings him a similar sense of peace and lets him continue.or,Queen Glimmer faces what it means to be near-immortal (and King Bow has a sip of tea.)(for the glimbow week prompt "injury/illness.")
Relationships: Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Series: glimbow week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1909897
Comments: 11
Kudos: 48
Collections: Glimbow Week 2020





	what am i supposed to do? (if there's no you?)

**Author's Note:**

> for the glimbow week prompt "injury/illness." 
> 
> and also for anyone else who's ever had to grieve someone who was still alive.
> 
> title from taylor swift's "soon you'll get better", ft. the chicks.

Glimmer remembers how her mother used to bring her tea. 

It was usually after they fought. Angella would knock twice, very lightly against her bedroom door. They were warnings, not questions, and were followed by the click of the lock. The Queen would enter then, wings poking into the room first. 

She remembers the melancholy of those moments. They were always too tired to continue yelling, voices hoarse and tongues dry, so they’d resign to sitting at the window seat. And they would drink there, solemnly, in silence. 

Glimmer could kick herself. To this day, words linger on her tongue. There was so much they should’ve talked about, so much they should’ve said before- 

The kettle squeals beside her. 

She pours two cups, places them on a tray, and walks to the bedroom. 

* * *

None of this should be a surprise to her. 

Bow’s hair started graying long before his appetite started going, long before his gait started slowing, and Glimmer would comb curls away from his ear and say he made quite the silver fox. It made them both laugh the first few times. Even after the joke wore off, she would still take his hand like always. 

People whispered, mostly in pity and concern, about how his wrinkled fingers looked so strange twined with her swift ones. But not even time and the caverns and crevices it created could take away the notches they had worn between their hands since childhood. It was still a perfect fit. 

It was still somehow a surprise when she was told he was sick. 

Glimmer knocks twice against the door before entering. 

The doctors keep the space nice and tidy. It’s a tad too sterile for her to call it their bedroom anymore, but she has refused to stop sharing a bed with him. Each day those who know better poke at her, and though her claws still come out, they’re duller now. His midnight coughing fits wear her down, and she finds herself breaking in meetings, taking time off as if she’s the one ailing. 

And she is, though she tries not to show it. 

Even with his eyes closed, Bow can read her better than anyone. He weakly turns his head to the side.

She says nothing as she sets the tea down and sits at his bedside. Bow’s hands are folded atop his chest, and Glimmer watches them rise and fall. According to the doctors, it’s only a matter of time before that motion ceases. 

The thought is almost impossible not to entertain. The reminders are everywhere, even when he isn’t breathing shallowly beside her. Glimmer wishes she could throttle every last journalist constantly pestering the court for an update on his health, even if their subjects, if all of Etheria, have a right to know how their king is fairing. It just feels so much more personal than a bolded headline. She can’t remember the last time she watched a NewsVid. 

_ “This isn’t some- some morning coffee table read!” _ she’d leapt out of her chair mid press briefing.  _ “This is my husband, your king! And while you’re all standing around here clamoring for some juicy story, he’s in bed suffering! He’s sick!”  _

And he’s dying. She won’t say it, but the love of her eons long life that’s only just beginning is sick and dying. 

Adora had pulled her, with little resistance, out of the meeting. By the lack of advisors knocking on her door, Glimmer assumed Catra had handled things fairly well in her place. 

“I can feel you watching me,” the voice is weak, which is what makes it so familiar. 

“What?” Glimmer asks, blinking herself out of a trance. His eyes are open now, giving him a front-row seat to her staring dumbly at him. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to.” 

Now it’s him who’s staring at her. “I don’t mind.” 

Her cheeks flush as the reminder of how good he is at making butterflies flurry through her stomach, sinks in. The soft look on his face makes her feel like they’re kids again. And if it wasn’t for how sullen he looked, she might be able to live in that fantasy. 

“Hush,” It’s halfhearted, said as she picks up her teacup to take a sip. She keeps it at her lips when he begins to murmur. 

“You look beautiful today.” 

“I look the same as I did this morning, you flirt.” 

He musters all his strength into a smile for her. “I know.” 

She feels like she’s going to vomit butterflies. He just likes seeing her blush like she’s twenty-one again. 

Glimmer tsks, fixing her perfectly fallen skirts as an excuse to evade his loving gaze. Each time they make direct eye contact, something within her clenches, and she doesn’t want him to have to see her cry. He’s going through enough as is. 

Still, the Queen refuses to let them lapse into silence. It’s not as good as getting whatever she’s stewing in off her chest, but it’s better than the alternative. She wishes she could believe that as long as she still had things to say, he would stay alive to hear them. But that hadn’t worked with Angella, and she would be stupid to think it would work with Bow. 

“Drink your tea,” she chides idly, knowing he hasn’t done so in weeks. 

What remains of her drink is a few runaway drops. She watches them slide aimlessly from side to side, wishing she hadn’t downed it all so fast. Gods damned anxiety. Glimmer sets down the cup and looks past him, out the window. They’ve always had a perfect view of the Moonstone from their bed. 

It taunts her. In all its power, it taunts her, dangling promises of endless power and near-immortality over her head. All this might within her petite frame, tethered to that eternal stone, and she still can’t do anything to save him. 

“What are we thinking?” the King makes sure to ask before she can fully fall into another stupor. 

It’s such a loaded question. It leaves her with a variety of routes to take, so many of them leading back to tea with her mother, to past mistakes. 

“How are you feeling?” 

Bow blinks. Not quite an answer, but not… not an answer. “Same as yesterday. Better now that you’re here.” 

“I’m serious,” She pleads, though it’s a soft one. Bow toes a line, knowing that no matter what she asks, she doesn’t want to hear any negative updates. 

“Me too.” One of his hands opens. “I always feel better when you come to see me.” 

Glimmer sighs, obviously unsatisfied, but quickly reaches forward to grab his hand. When hers trembles in his grasp, she can’t help but think about how backwards it feels. She should be stroking his hand with her thumb, not the other way around. But she knows it brings him a similar sense of peace, and lets him continue. 

_ What am I going to do?  _ She thinks when the mental image of her, crumpled over the bed, stroking her own hand comes to mind.  _ What am I going to do when you’re gone? _

“I watch the Moonstone too.” Bow says. His wife looks to him, a small nod imploring him to go on. “It reminds me of you. I can still see you running around the courtyard, teleporting everywhere… back when you were still learning to use your powers.” 

She feels her cheeks heat up again and reaches towards the curls by his ear. “Like, when I was little? Or after I’d fully connected with it as queen?” 

“Both. But I can also picture you flying. I know that took some time for you to learn too, but I loved watching you try. You always look so free and careless and beautiful in the air.” 

Glimmer feels her wings, cloaked with a spell as to not take up room (she’s always thought they were obnoxiously large), thrum behind her. 

“You haven’t been flying lately,” Bow’s voice is strained, and the weight of it rips her heartstrings across her chest. “Why haven’t you been flying, Glimmer?” 

Because flying makes her happy. Because she isn’t happy. Because she feels too heavy to lift a single foot in the air. Because it doesn’t feel fair when he’s not strong enough to shoot a single arrow. 

“I haven’t had the time,” 

Bow shoots her the look he always does when he knows she isn’t being truthful. It’s not accusatory. She’d never open up to him if it was. 

“It makes you happy.” He says. “You should find the time because it makes you happy. I know you need some happiness right now,” 

“No,” Glimmer sits up straighter, holding his hand closer. “I’m fine, Bow. I’m fine. It’s like you said, I always feel better when I’m with you, or something like that.” 

“Or something like that. Glim, I know you. I know you’re not fine. I know you’re never fine when you say you are so forcefully.” 

His eyes widen when she squeezes his hand even tighter, head shaking as she tries to control her breathing. She can’t tell what’s happening to her. She’s experienced enough grief, enough anxiety to know what it’s like to anticipate death. With her connection to the Moonstone, with her angelic heritage, she has resigned herself to a life of it, of waiting for those around her to die. Maybe it’s the fact that, with this half panic, half grief attack brewing in her chest, she feels like she’s already mourning him. 

“Glimmer,” Bow attempts to sit up, arms ready to encircle her, but launches into a coughing fit the second he leans over too far. 

The fever in her explodes then, and she lunges across the space between them to wrap her arms around him. In her panic, Glimmer knees her teacup off the table. She winces into Bow’s shoulder as she hears it shatter on the ground. The terrible sound replays over and over, merged with his coughs and her terrible record-scratch sob of his name. His body, once so strong, wracks as if it’s trying to buck her off. She only holds him tighter, remembering the way she used to feel safe against his muscles. 

When the fit finally ceases, he’s left to breathe heavily, suspended upright only by his wife’s wrought iron grip on him. Glimmer lowers him back to his pillow, never once leaving her hiding space in the valley of his neck. Any tears she’s shed, she’s made sure to store there where he can’t see. 

“You’re fine,” The Queen says, now suspended halfway between her chair and the bed. “You’re fine, everything is okay.” 

Bow attempts to speak, but wraps his arms around her when he realizes he only has enough strength to do so. He knows, they know he’s not fine. 

She can no longer ignore, as his body sputters beneath her, that he could die at any time. He could die right this second despite her arms being wrapped around him, a place where he’s supposed to be safe from everything. 

“Glim,” He manages, head tilting against hers. 

“You have to let us try,” She interrupts. “You have to let us try and help you, try and do something.” 

“Glimmer, no,” 

“-Yes! Maybe if Adora, i-if she becomes She-Ra and tries to heal you,” 

“Glimmer, I said-” 

“Or me! If we keep looking, we can find something! But you have to let us, Bow! I have all this power, and yet I’m just sitting here useless! I’m not going to be able to live forever knowing that I just let you die!”

“Listen to me,” He’s started begging in tandem with her, holding as tight as his old bones can allow. “Please,” 

“Please,” She parrots as he shrugs her face out of hiding and looks down at her. “Please, please, please.” A wrinkled hand finds her cheek. 

Glimmer mourns the chunk of her heart she’s lost when he guides her into meeting his eyes. They’re the only part of him that hasn’t aged, the only part of him she can see every version of her Bow in. And she refused to look into them for so long. 

“It’s not going to work.” 

“No,” Her protest is halted by the one tear that slides down his face. 

“You know it’s not going to work, Glimmer. No amount of magic, no matter how powerful is going to be able to stop this. To stop me from-” 

The Queen swallows. “Don’t,” 

“I’ve thought about it, I promise. But I know how it’s going to end, and I don’t want to put you through another layer of pain by giving you hope that I know is false. I love you too much for that.” 

She’s always been one to want to stop the world, to change the direction in which it rotates. It’s never worked for her. It didn’t work with the Heart of Etheria, and it won’t work now. 

And Bow has always been the one grounded in realism, the one who knew there were certain problems magic couldn’t solve. The difference in their mortality, the one they’ve always been sub-aware of, may be the biggest one yet. But Glimmer loves him enough to finally let him be right. 

Bow flinches when he feels a familiar warmth radiate from her, one that signals an incoming blast of sparkles or something of the sort. He closes his eyes, wishing she would listen, and waits for a shock of pink that will do nothing but rattle what’s left of him. But nothing comes. The King looks down in surprise when nothing but a small dusting of glitter comes his way. 

Beside him is his wife, now crying quietly as she outstretches the candy pink wings protruding from her back to their full span. He feels a sense of peace he hasn’t felt since before the decline of his health as they, with their filmy softness, wrap around him like a blanket. With all four of these limbs, Glimmer pulls them as close together as she possibly can. 

“I love you,” She resigns into his chest. “I love you too.” 

There are a million other roads she wants to walk down. The path of  _ “don’t leave me. don’t leave me, please, you’re the only true thing i’ve ever had,” _ is the most prominent, but Glimmer can’t say anything but  _ I love you _ , over and over again. 

It’s not the same as before, though. When she would have tea with her mother, there was no way for them to know what the other was thinking. But when Bow presses weakly presses his lips to her forehead, Glimmer understands. Oh, how he wishes he could stay. 

The silence is less daunting after that. Instead, Glimmer is haunted by the remains of her teacup on the floor. 

“Glimmer,” 

“Yeah?” 

He gestures weakly to his cup of tea, still filled to the brim, but cold. “Grab that for me? Please?” 

The Queen, despite her confusion, obliges. She keeps her wings tight and holds the tea between them. “This?” 

“Yeah,” 

The hand on her cheek slowly moves down the rest of her face. It rests briefly on her shoulder, then drags along the length of her arm and plays with her fingers before his own finally encircle the handle of the cup. 

With all his might, he takes a sip. 

**Author's Note:**

> in my opinion, one of the most bittersweet things about looking at she-ra canon like this is the fact that all the turmoil of the show's canon will eventually just be a blip on the radar of glimmer's centuries-long life. 
> 
> it's very sad, but also makes for some extraordinary writing prompts. happy glimbow week, everyone!
> 
> come and find me on tumblr @ gllimbow 💜✨


End file.
